Hledání odpovědi na Kantovu hádanku spojenou s realizací míru

A thorough reading of the Idea of a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim, The Conflict of the Faculties, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason and Perpetual Peace shows that Kant embraces two distinct and opposing views on the historical-teleological sequence of establishing peace. According to the first view, the establishment of a political community anticipates the realization of peace, which in turn precedes the formation of an ethical commonwealth. However, according to the second view, the establishment of an ethical commonwealth assures the realization of peace. These opposite views can be reconciled by distinguishing three stages. First, a just political community secures a provisional legal peace that coercively guarantees external freedom and right. Secondly, legal peace in a political community makes it possible for man to realize his moral progress and to respect his moral maxims so that an ethical community is established. Finally, an ethical community upgrades merely legal peace into a moral - and truly perpetual - peace that is no longer based on mere self-interest in external freedom and right, but on communal moral dispositions concerned with inner freedom and virtue.